Writings of Arnobius. Against the Heathen. (Adversus Gentes.)

Text edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson and
first published by T&T Clark in Edinburgh in 1867. Additional
introductionary material and notes provided for the American
edition by A. Cleveland Coxe, 1886.

Book IV.

1. We would ask you, and you above all, O Romans, lords and princes of
the world, whether you think that Piety, Concord, Safety, Honour,
Virtue, Happiness, and other such names, to which we see you rear
[4005] altars and splendid temples, have divine power, and live in
heaven? [4006] or, as is usual, have you classed them with the deities
merely for form's sake, because we desire and wish these blessings to
fall to our lot? For if, while you think them empty names without any
substance, you yet deify them with divine honours, [4007] you will
have to consider whether that is a childish frolic, or tends to bring
your deities into contempt, [4008] when you make equal, and add to
their number vain and feigned names. But if you have loaded them with
temples and couches, holding with more assurance that these, too, are
deities, we pray you to teach us in our ignorance, by what course, in
what way, Victory, Peace, Equity, and the others mentioned among the
gods, can be understood to be gods, to belong to the assembly of the
immortals?

2. For we--but, perhaps, you c rob and deprive us of
common-sense--feel and perceive that none of these has divine power,
or possesses a form of its own; [4009] but that, on the contrary, they
are the excellence of manhood, [4010] the safety of the safe, the
honour of the respected, the victory of the conqueror, the harmony of
the allied, the piety of the pious, the recollection of the observant,
the good fortune, indeed, of him who lives happily and without
exciting any ill-feeling. Now it is easy to perceive that, in speaking
thus, we speak most reasonably when we observe [4011] the contrary
qualities opposed to them, misfortune, discord, forgetfulness,
injustice, impiety, baseness of spirit, and unfortunate [4012]
weakness of body. For as these things happen accidentally, and [4013]
depend on human acts and chance moods, so their contraries, named
[4014] after more agreeable qualities, must be found in others; and
from these, originating in this wise, have arisen those invented
names.

3. With regard, indeed, to your bringing forward to us other bands of
unknown [4015] gods, we cannot determine whether you do that
seriously, and from a belief in its certainty; or, merely playing with
empty fictions, abandon yourselves to an unbridled imagination. The
goddess Luperca, you tell us on the authority of Varro, was named
because the fierce wolf spared the exposed childrenˇ Was that goddess,
then, disclosed, not by her own power, but by the course of events?
and was it only after the wild beast restrained its cruel teeth, that
she both began to be herself and was marked by [4016] her name? or
if she was already a goddess long before the birth of Romulus and his
brother, show us what was her name and title. Praestana was named,
according to you, because, in throwing the javelin, Quirinus excelled
all in strength; [4017] and the goddess Panda, or Pantica, was named
because Titus Tatius was allowed to open up and make passable a road,
that he might take the Capitoline. Before these events, then, had the
deities never existed? and if Romulus had not held the first place in
casting the javelin, and if the Sabine king had been unable to take
the Tarpeian rock, would there be no Pantica, no Praestana? And if you
say that they [4018] existed before that which gave rise to their
name, a question which has been discussed in a preceding section,
[4019] tell us also what they were called.

4. Pellonia is a goddess mighty to drive back enemies. Whose enemies,
say, if it is convenient? Opposing armies meet, and fighting together,
hand to hand, decide the battle; and to one this side, to another
that, is hostile. Whom, then, will Pellonia turn to flight, since on
both sides there will be fighting? or in favour of whom will she
incline, seeing that she should afford to both sides the might and
services of her name? But if she indeed [4020] did so, that is, if
she gave her good-will and favour to both sides, she would destroy the
meaning of her name, which was formed with regard to the beating back
of one side. But you will perhaps say, She is goddess of the Romans
only, and, being on the side of the Quirites alone, is ever ready
graciously to help them. [4021] We wish, indeed, that it were so,
for we like the name; but it is a very doubtful matter. What! do the
Romans have gods to themselves, who do not help [4022] other
nations? and how can they be gods, if they do not exercise their
divine power impartially towards all nations everywhere? and where, I
pray you, was this goddess Pellonia long ago, when the national honour
was brought under the yoke at the Caudine Forks? when at the Trasimene
lake the streams ran with blood? when the plains of Diomede [4023]
were heaped up with dead Romans when a thousand other blows were
sustained in countless disastrous battles? Was she snoring and
sleeping; [4024] or, as the base often do, had she deserted to the
enemies' camp?

5. The sinister deities preside over the regions on the left hand
only, and are opposed to those [4025] on the right. But with what
reason this is said, or with what meaning, we do not understand
ourselves; and we are sure that you cannot in any degree cause it to
be clearly and generally understood. [4026] For in the first place,
indeed, the world itself has in itself neither right nor left neither
upper nor under regions, neither fore nor after parts. For whatever is
round, and bounded on every side by the circumference [4027] of a
solid sphere, has no beginning, no end; where there is no end and
beginning, no part can have [4028] its own name and form the
beginning. Therefore, when we say, This is the right, and that the
left side, we do not refer to anything [4029] in the world, which is
everywhere very much the same, but to our own place and position, we
being [4030] so formed that we speak of some things as on our right
hand, of others as on our left; and yet these very things which we
name left, and the others which we name right, have in us no
continuance, no fixedness, but take their forms from our sides, just
as chance, and the accident of the moment, may have placed us. If I
look towards the rising sun, the north pole and the north are on my
left hand; and if I turn my face thither, the west will be on my left,
for it will be regarded as behind the sun's back. But, again, if I
turn my eyes to the region of the west, the wind and country of the
south are now said to be on [4031] my left. And if I am turned to
this side by the necessary business of the moment, the result is, that
the east is said to be on the left, owing to a further change of
position, [4032] --from which it can be very easily seen that
nothing is either on our right or on our left by nature, but from
position, time, [4033] and according as our bodily position with
regard to surrounding objects has been taken up. But in this case, by
what means, in what way, will there be gods of the regions of the
left, when it is clear that the same regions are at one time on the
right, at another on the left? or what have the regions of the right
done to the immortal gods, to deserve that they should be without any
to care for them, while they have ordained that these should be
fortunate, and ever accompanied by lucky omens?

6. Lateranus, [4034] as you say, is the god and genius of hearths,
and received this name because men build that kind of fireplace of
unbaked bricks. What then? if hearths were made of baked clay, or any
other material whatever, will they have no genii? and will Lateranus,
whoever he is, abandon his duty as guardian, because the kingdom which
he possesses has not been formed of bricks of clay? And for what
purpose, [4035] I ask, has that god received the charge of hearths?
He runs about the kitchens of men, examining and discovering with what
kinds of wood the heat in their fires is produced; he gives strength
[4036] to earthen vessels that they may not fly in pieces, overcome by
the violence of the flames; he sees that the flavour of unspoilt
dainties reaches the taste of the palate with their own pleasantness,
and acts the part of a taster, and tries whether the sauces have been
rightly prepared. Is not this unseemly, nay--to speak with more
truth--disgraceful, impious, to introduce some pretended deities for
this only, not to do them reverence with fitting honours, but to
appoint them over base things, and disreputable actions? [4037]

7. Does Venus Militaris, also, preside over the evil-doing [4038] of
camps, and the debaucheries of young men? Is there one Perfica,
[4039] also, of the crowd of deities, who causes those base and filthy
delights to reach their end with uninterrupted pleasure? Is there also
Pertunda, who presides over the marriage [4040] couch? Is there also
Tutunus, on whose huge members [4041] and horrent fascinum you think
it auspicious, and desire, that your matrons should be borne? But if
facts themselves have very little effect in suggesting to volt a right
understanding of the truth, are you not able, even from the very
names, to understand that these are the inventions of a most
meaningless superstition, and the false gods of fancy? [4042] Puta,
you say, presides over the pruning of trees, Peta over prayers;
Nemestrinus [4043] is the god of groves; Patellana is a deity, and
Patella, of whom the one has been set over things brought to light,
the other over those yet to be disclosed. Nodutis is spoken of as a
god, because he [4044] brings that which has been sown to the knots:
and she who presides over the treading out of grain, Noduterensis;
[4045] the goddess Upibilia [4046] delivers from straying from the
right paths; parents bereaved of their children are under the care of
Orbona,--those very near to death, under that of Naenia. Again,
[4047] Ossilago herself is mentioned as she who gives firmness and
solidity to the bones of young children. Mellonia is a goddess, strong
and powerful in regard to bees, caring for and guarding the sweetness
of their honey.

8. Say, I pray you,--that Peta, Puta, Patella may graciously favour
you,--if there were no [4048] bees at all on the earth then, or if
we men were born without bones, like some worms, would there be no
goddess Mellonia; [4049] or would Ossilago, who gives bones their
solidity, be without a name of her own? I ask truly, and eagerly
inquire whether you think that gods, or men, or bees, fruits, twigs,
and the rest, are the more ancient in nature, time, long duration? No
man will doubt that you say that the gods precede all things whatever
by countless ages and generations. But if it is so, how, in the nature
of things, can it be that, from things produced afterwards, they
received those names which are earlier in point of time? or that the
gods were charged with the care [4050] of those things which were
not yet produced, and assigned to be of use to men? Or were the gods
long without names; and was it only after things began to spring up,
and be on the earth, that you thought it right that they should be
called by these names [4051] and titles? And whence could you have
known what name to give to each, since you were wholly ignorant of
their existence; or that they possessed any fixed powers, seeing that
you were equally unaware which of them had any power, and over what he
should be placed to suit his divine might?

9. What then? you say; do you declare that these gods exist nowhere in
the world, and have been created by unreal fancies? Not we alone, but
truth itself, and reason, say so, and that common-sense in which all
men share. For who there who believes that there are gods of gain, and
that they preside over the getting of it, seeing that it springs very
often from the basest employments, and is always at the expense of
others? Who believes that Libentina, who that Burnus. [4052] is set
over those lusts which wisdom bills us avoid, and which, in a thousand
ways, vile and filthy wretches [4053] attempt and practise? Who that
Limentinus and Lima have the care of thresholds, and do the duties of
their keepers, when every day we see the thresholds of temples and
private houses destroyed and overthrown, and that the infamous
approaches to stews are not without them? Who believes that the Limi
[4054] watch over obliquities? who that Saturnus presides over the
sown crops? who that Montinus is the guardian of mountains; Murcia,
[4055] of the slothful? Who, finally, would believe that Money is a
goddess, whom your writings declare, as though she were the greatest
deity, to give golden rings, [4056] the front seats at games and
shows, honours in the greatest number, the dignity of the magistracy,
and that which the indolent love most of all,--an undisturbed ease, by
means of riches.

10. But if you urge that bones, different kinds of honey, thresholds,
and all the other things which we have either run over rapidly, or, to
avoid prolixity, passed by altogether, have [4057] their own
peculiar guardians, we may in like manner introduce a thousand other
gods, who should care for and guard innumerable things. For why should
a god have charge of honey only, and not of gourds, rape, cunila,
cress, figs, beets, cabbages? Why should the bones alone have found
protection, and not the nails, hair, and all the other things which
are placed in the hidden parts and members of which we feel ashamed,
and are exposed to very many accidents, and stand more in need of the
care and attention of the gods? Or if you say that these parts, too,
act under the care of their own tutelar deities, there will begin to
be as many gods as there are things; nor will the cause be stated why
the divine care does not protect all things, if you say that there are
certain things over which the deities preside, and for which they
care.

11. What say you, O fathers of new religions, and powers? [4058] Do
you cry out, and complain that these gods are dishonoured by us, and
neglected with profane contempt, viz. Lateranus, the genius of
hearths; Limentinus, who presides over thresholds; Pertunda, [4059]
Perfica, Noduterensis: [4060] and do you say that things have sunk
into ruin, and that the world itself has changed its laws and
constitution, because we do not bow humbly in supplication to
Mutunus [4061] and Tutunus? But now look and see, lest while you
imagine such monstrous things, and form such conceptions, you may have
offended the gods who most assuredly exist, if only there are any who
are worthy to bear and hold that most exalted title; and it be for no
other reason that those evils, of which you speak, rage, and increase
by accessions every day. [4062] Why, then, some one of you will
perhaps say, do you maintain [4063] that it is not true that these
gods exist? And, when invoked by the diviners, do they obey the call,
and come when summoned by their own names, and give answers which may
be relied on, to those who consult them? We can show that what is said
is false, either because in the whole matter there is the greatest
room for distrust, or because we, every day, see many of their
predictions either prove untrue or baffled expectation to suit the
opposite issues.

12. But let them [4064] be true, as you maintain, yet will you have
us also believe [4065] that Mellonia, for example, introduces
herself into the entrails, or Limentinus, and that they set themselves
to make known [4066] what you seek to learn? Did you ever see their
face their deportment, their countenance? or can even these be seen in
lungs or livers? May it not happen, may it not come to pass, although
you craftily conceal it, that the one should take the other's place,
deluding, mocking, deceiving, and presenting the appearance of the
deity invoked? If the magi, who are so much akin to [4067]
soothsayers, relate that, in their incantations, pretended gods
[4068] steal in frequently instead of those invoked; that some of
these, moreover, are spirits of grosser substance, [4069] who
pretend that they are gods, and delude the ignorant by their lies and
deceit,--why [4070] should we not similarly believe that here, too,
others substitute themselves for those who are not, that they may both
strengthen your superstitious beliefs, and rejoice that victims are
slain in sacrifice to them under names not their own?

13. Or, if you refuse to believe this on account of its novelty,
[4071] how can you know whether there is not some one, who comes in
place of all whom yon invoke, and substituting himself in all parts of
the world, [4072] shows to you what appear to be [4073] many gods
and powers? Who is that one? some one will ask. We may perhaps, being
instructed by truthful authors, be able to say; but, lest you should
be unwilling to believe us, let my opponent ask the Egyptians,
Persians, Indians, Chaldeans, Armenians, and all the others who have
seen and become acquainted with these things in the more recondite
arts. Then, indeed, you will learn who is the one God, or who the very
many under Him are, who pretend to be gods, and make sport of men's
ignorance.

Even now we are ashamed to come to the point at which not only boys,
young and pert, but grave men also, cannot restrain their laughter,
and men who have been hardened into a strict and stern humour.
[4074] For while we have all heard it inculcated and taught by our
teachers, that in declining the names of the gods there was no plural
number, because the gods were individuals, and the ownership of each
name could not be common to a great many; [4075] you in
fogetfulness, and putting away the memory of your early lessons, both
give to several gods the same names, and, although you are elsewhere
more moderate as to their number, have multiplied them, again, by
community of names; which subject, indeed, men of keen discernment and
acute intellect have before now treated both in Latin and Greek.
[4076] And that might have lessened our labour, [4077] if it were
not that at the same time we see that some know nothing of these
books; and, also, that the discussion which we have begun, compels us
to bring forward something on these subjects, although it has been
already laid hold of, and related by those writers.

14. Your theologians, then, and authors on unknown antiquity, say that
in the universe there are three Joves, one of whom has Aether for his
father; another, Coelus; the third, Saturn, born and buried [4078]
in the island of Crete. They speak of five Suns and vie Mercuries,--of
whom, as they relate, the first Sun is called the son of Jupiter, and
is regarded as grandson of Aether; the second is also Jupiter's son,
and the mother who bore him Hyperiona; [4079] the third the son of
Vulcan, not Vulcan of Lemnos, but the son of the Nile; the fourth,
whom Acantho bore at Rhodes in the heroic age, was the father of
Ialysus; while the fifth is regarded as the son of a Scythian king and
subtle Circe. Again, the first Mercury, who is said to have lusted
after Proserpina, [4080] is son of Coelus, who is above all. Under
the earth is the second, who boasts that he is Trophonius. The third
was born of Maia, his mother, and the third Jove; [4081] the fourth
is the offspring of the Nile, whose name the people of Egypt dread and
fear to utter. The fifth is the slayer of Argus, a fugitive and exile.
and the inventor of letters in Egypt. But there are five Minervas
also, they say, just as there are five Suns and Mercuries; the first
of whom is no virgin but the mother of Apollo by Vulcan; the second,
the offspring of the Nile, who is asserted to be the Egyptian Sais;
the third is descended from Saturn, and is the one who devised the use
of arms; the fourth is sprung from Jove, and the Messenians name her
Coryphasia; and the fifth is she who slew her lustful [4082] father,
Pallas.

15. And lest it should seem tedious and prolix to wish to consider
each person singly, the same theologians say that there are four
Vulcans and three Dianas, as many Aesculapii and five Dionysi, six
Hercules and four Venuses, threesets of Castors and the same number of
Muses, three winged Cupids, and four named Apollo; [4083] whose
fathers they mention in like manner, in like manner their mothers, and
the places where they were born, and point out the origin andfamily of
each. But if it is true and certain, and is told in earnest as a
well-known matter, either they are not all gods, inasmuch as there
cannot be several under the same name, as we have been taught; or if
there is one of them, he will not be known and recognised, because he
is obscured by the confusion of very similar names. And thus it
results from your own action, however unwilling you may be that it
should be so, that religion is brought into difficulty and confusion,
and has no fixed end to which it can turn itself, without being made
the sport of equivocal illusions.

16. For suppose that it had occurred to us, moved either by suitable
influence or violent fear of you, [4084] to worship Minerva, for
example, with the rights you deem sacred, and the usual ceremony: if,
when we prepare sacrifices, and approach to make the offerings
appointed for her on the flaming altars, all the Minervas shall fly
thither, and striving for the right to that name, each demand that the
offerings prepared be given to herself; what drawn-out animal shall we
place among them, or to whom shall we direct the sacred offices which
are our duty? [4085] For the first one of whom we spoke will perhaps
say: "The name Minerva is mine, mine [4086] the divine majesty, who
bore Apollo and Diana, and by the fruit of my womb enriched heaven
with deities, and multiplied the number of the gods." "Nay, Minerva,"
the fifth will say, "are you speaking, [4087] who, being a wife, and
so often a mother, have lost the sanctity of spotless purity? Do you
not see that in all temples [4088] the images of Minervas are those
of virgins, and that all artists refrain from giving to them the
figures of matrons? [4089] Cease, therefore, to appropriate to
yourself a name not rightfully [4090] yours. For that I am Minerva,
begotten of father Pallas, the whole band of poets bear witness, who
call me Pallas, the surname being derived from my father." The second
will cry on hearing this: "What say you? Do you, then, bear the name
of Minerva, an impudent parricide, and one defiled by the pollution of
lewd lust, who, decking yourself with rouge and a harlot's arts,
roused upon yourself even your father's passions, full of maddening
desires? Go further, then, seek for yourself another name for this
belongs to me, whom the Nile, greatest of rivers, begot from among his
flowing waters, and brought to a maiden's estate from the condensing
of moisture. [4091] But if you inquire into the credibility of the
matter, I too will bring as witnesses the Egyptians, in whose language
I am called Neith, as Plato's Timaeus [4092] attests." What, then,
do we suppose will be the result? Will she indeed cease to say that
she is Minerva, who is named Coryphasia, either to mark her mother, or
because she sprung forth from the top of Jove's head, bearing a
shield, and girt with the terror of arms? Or are we to suppose that
she who is third will quietly surrender the name? and not argue
[4093] and resist the assumption of the first two with such words as
these: "Do you thus dare to assume the honour of my name, O Sais,
[4094] sprung from the mud and eddies of a stream, and formed in miry
places? Or do you usurp [4095] another's rank, who falsely say that
you were born a goddess from the head of Jupiter, and persuade very
silly men that you are reason? Does he conceive and bring forth
children from ms head? That the arms you bear might be forged and
formed, was there even in the hollow of his head a smith's workshop?
were there anvils, hammers, furnaces, bellows, coals, and pincers? Or
if, as you maintain, it is true that you are reason, cease to claim
for yourself the name which is mine; for reason, of which you speak,
is not a certain form of deity, but the understanding of difficult
questions." If, then, as we have said, five Minervas should meet us
when we essay to sacrifice, [4096] and contending as to whose this
name is, each demand that either fumigations of incense be offered to
her, or sacrificial wines poured out from golden cups; by what
arbiter, by what judge, shall we dispose of so great a dispute? or
what examiner will there be, what umpire of so great boldness as to
attempt, with such personages, either to give a just decision, or to
declare their causes not founded on right? Will he not rather go home,
and, keeping himself apart from such matters, think it safer to have
nothing to do with them, test he should either make enemies of the
rest, by giving to one what belongs to all, or be charged with folly
for yielding [4097] to all what should be the property of one?

17. We may say the very same things of the Mercuries, the
Suns,--indeed of all the others whose numbers you increase and
multiply. But it is sufficient to know from one case that the same
principle applies to the rest; and, lest our prolixity should chance
to weary our audience, we shall cease to deal with individuals, lest,
while we accuse you of excess, we also should ourselves be exposed to
the charge of excessive loquacity. What do you say, you who, by the
fear of bodily tortures, urge us to worship the gods, and constrain us
to undertake the service of your deities? We can be easily won, if
only something befitting the conception of so great a race be shown to
us. Show us Mercury, but only, one; give us Bacchus, but only one; one
Venus, and in like manner one Diana. For you will never make us
believe that there are four Apollos, or three Jupiters, not even if
you were to call Jove himself as witness, or make the Pythian god your
authority.

18. But some one on the opposite side says, How do we know whether the
theologians have written what is certain and well known, or set forth
a wanton fiction, [4098] as they thought and judged? That has
nothing to do with the matter; nor does the reasonableness of your
argument depend upon this,--whether the facts are as the writings of
the theologians state, or are otherwise and markedly different. For to
us it is enough to speak of things which come before the public; and
we need not inquire what is true, but only confute and disprove that
which lies open to all, and which men's thoughts have generally
received. But if they are liars, declare yourselves what is the truth,
and disclose the unassailable mystery. And how can it be done when the
services of men of letters are set aside? For what is there which can
be said about. the immortal gods that has not reached men's thoughts
from what has been written by men on these subjects? [4099] Or can
you relate anything yourselves about their rights and ceremonies,
which has not been recorded in books, and made known by what authors
have written? Or if you think these of no importance, let all the
books be destroyed which have been composed about the gods for you by
theologians, pontiffs, and even some devoted to the study of
philosophy; nay, let us rather suppose that from the foundation of the
world no man ever wrote [4100] anything about the gods: we wish to
find out, and desire to know, whether you can mutter or murmur in
mentioning the gods, [4101] or conceive those in thought to whom no
idea [4102] from any book gave shape in your minds. But when it is
clear that you have been informed of their names and powers by the
suggestions of books, [4103] it is unjust to deny the reliableness
of these books by whose testimony and authority you establish what you
say.

19. But perhaps these things will turn out to be false, and what you
say to be true. By what proof, by what evidence, will it be shown? For
since both parties are men, both those who have said the one thing and
those who have said the other, and on both sides the discussion was of
doubtful matters, it is arrogant to say that that is true which seems
so to you, but that that which offends your feelings manifests
wantonness and falsehood. By the laws of the human race, and the
associations of mortality itself, when you read and hear, That god was
born of this father and of that mother, do you not feel in your
mind 0 [4104] that something is said which belongs to man, and
relates to the meanness of our earthly race? Or, while you think that
it is so, 0 [4105] do you conceive no anxiety lest you should in
something offend the gods themselves, whoever they are, because you
believe that it is owing to filthy intercourse ... 0 [4106] that they
have reached the light they knew not of, thanks to lewdness? For we,
lest any one should chance to think that we are ignorant of, do not
know, what befits the majesty of that name, assuredly 0 [4107] think
that the gods should not know birth; or if they are born at all, we
hold and esteem that the Lord and Prince of the universe, by ways
which He knew Himself, sent them forth spotless, most pure, undefiled,
ignorant of sexual pollution, 0 [4108] and brought to the full
perfection of their natures as soon as they were begotten? 0 [4109]

20. But you, on the contrary, forgetting how great 0 [4110] their
dignity and grandeur are, associate with them a birth, 0 [4111] and
impute to them a descent, 0 [4112] which men of at all refined
feelings regard as at once execrable and terrible. From Ops, you say,
his mother, and from his father Saturn, Diespiter was born with his
brothers. Do the gods, then, have wives; and, the matches having been
previously planned, do they become subject to the bonds of marriage?
Do they take upon themselves 0 [4113] the engagements of the bridal
couch by prescription, by the cake of spelt, and by a pretended
sale? [4114] Have they their mistresses, [4115] their promised
wives, their betrothed brides, on settled conditions? And what do we
say about their marriages, too, when indeed you say that some
celebrated their nuptials, and entertained joyous throngs, and that
the goddesses sported at these; and that some threw all things into
utter confusion with dissensions because they had no share in singing
the Fescennine verses, and occasioned danger and destruction [4116]
to the next generation of men? [4117]

21. But perhaps this foul pollution may be less apparent in the rest.
Did, then, the ruler of the heavens, the father of gods and men, who,
by the motion of his eyebrow, and by his nod, shakes the whole heavens
and makes them tremble,--did he find his origin in man and woman? And
unless both sexes abandoned themselves to degrading pleasures in
sensual embraces, [4118] would there be no Jupiter, greatest of
all; and even to this time would the divinities have no king, and
heaven stand without its lord? And why do we marvel that you say Jove
sprang from a woman's womb, seeing that your authors relate that he
both had a nurse, and in the next place maintained the life given to
him by nourishment drawn from a foreign [4119] breast? What say
you, O men? Did, then, shall I repeat, the god who makes the thunder
crash, lightens and hurls the thunderbolt, and draws together terrible
clouds, drink in the streams of the breast, wail as an infant, creep
about, and, that he might be persuaded to cease his crying most
foolishly protracted, was he made silent by the noise of rattles,
[4120] and put to sleep lying in a very soft cradle, and lulled with
broken words? O devout assertion of the existence of gods, pointing
out and declaring the venerable majesty of their awful grandeur! Is it
thus in your opinion, ask, that the exalted powers [4121] of heaven
are produced? do your gods come forth to the light by modes of birth
such as these, by which asses, pigs. dogs, by which the whole of this
unclean herd [4122] of earthly beasts is conceived and begotten?

22. And, not content to have ascribed these carnal unions to the
venerable Saturn, [4123] you affirm that the king of the world
himself begot children even more shamefully than he was himself born
and begotten. Of Hyperiona, [4124] as his mother, you say, and
Jupiter, who wields the thunderbolt, was born the golden and blazing
Sun; of Latona and the same, the Delian archer, and Diana, [4125]
who rouses the woods; of Leda and the same, [4126] those named in
Greek Dioscori; of Aclmena and the same, the Theban Hercules, whom his
club and hide defended; of him and Semele, Liber, who is named
Bromius, and was born a second time from his father's thigh; of him,
again, and Main, Mercury, eloquent in speech, and bearer of the
harmless snakes. Can any greater insult be put upon your Jupiter, or
is there anything else which will destroy and ruin the reputation of
the chief of the gods, further than that you believe him to have been
at times overcome by vicious pleasures, and to have glowed with the
passion of a heart roused to lust after women? And what had the
Saturnian king to do with strange nuptials? Did Juno not suffice him;
and could he not stay the force of his desires on the queen of the
deities, although so great excellence graced her, such beauty, majesty
of countenance, and snowy and marble whiteness of arms? Or did he, not
content with one wife, taking pleasure in concubines, mistresses, and
courtezans, a lustful god, show [4127] his incontinence in all
directions, as is the custom with dissolute [4128] youths; and in
old age, after intercourse with numberless persons, did he renew his
eagerness for pleasures now losing their zest? What say you, profane
ones; or what vile thoughts do you fashion about your love? Do you
not, then, observe do you not see with what disgrace you brand him? of
what wrong-doing you make him the author? or what stains of vice, how
great infamy you heap upon him?

23. Men, though prone to lust, and inclined, through weakness of
character, to yield to the allurements of sensual pleasures, still
punish adultery by the laws, and visit with the penalty of death those
whom they find to have possessed themselves of others rights by
forcing the marriage-bed. The greatest of kings, however, you tell us,
did not know how vile, how infamous the person of the seducer and
adulterer was; and he who, as is said, examines our merits and
demerits, did not, owing to the reasonings of his abandoned heart, see
what was the fitting course for him to resolve on. But this misconduct
might perhaps be endured, if you were to conjoin him with persons at
least his equals, and if he were made by you the paramour of the
immortal goddesses. But what beauty, what grace was there, I ask you,
in human bodies, which could move, which could turn to it [4129]
the eyes of Jupiter? Skin, entrails, phlegm, and all that filthy mass
placed under the coverings of the intestines, which not Lynceus only
with his searching gaze can shudder at, but any other also can be made
to turn from even by merely thinking.

24. If you will open your minds' eyes, and see the real [4130]
truth without gratifying any private end, you will find that the
causes of all the miseries by which, as you say, the human race has
long been afflicted, flow from such beliefs which you held in former
times about your gods; and which you have refused to amend, although
the truth was placed before your eyes. For what about them, pray, have
we indeed ever either imagined which was unbecoming, or put forth in
shameful writings that the troubles which assail men and the loss of
the blessings of life [4131] should be used to excite a prejudice
against us? Do we say that certain gods were produced from eggs,
[4132] like storks and pigeons? Do we say that the radiant Cytherean
Venus grew up, having taken form from the sea's foam and the severed
genitals of Coelus? that Saturn was thrown into chains for parricide,
and relieved from their weight only on his own days? [4133] that
Jupiter was saved from death [4134] by the services of the Curetes?
that he drove his father from the seat of power, and by force and
fraud possessed a sovereignty not his own? Do we say that his aged
sire, when driven out, concealed himself in the territories of the
Itali, and gave his name as a gift to Latium, [4135] because he had
been there protected from his son? Do we say that Jupiter himself
incestuously married his sister? or, instead of pork, breakfasted in
ignorance upon the son of Lycaon, when invited to his table? that
Vulcan, limping on one foot, wrought as a smith in the island of
Lemnos? that Aeculapius was transfixed by a thunderbolt because of his
greed and avarice, as the Boeotian Pindar [4136] sings? that
Apollo, having become rich, by his ambiguous responses, deceived the
very kings by whose treasures and gifts he had been enriched? Did we
declare that Mercury was a thief? that Laverna is so also, and along
with him presides over secret frauds? Is the writer Myrtilus one of
us, who declares that the Muses were the handmaids of Megalcon,
[4137] daughter of Macarus? [4138]

25. Did we say [4139] that Venus was a courtezan, deified by a
Cyprian king named Cinyras? Who reported that the palladium was formed
from the remains of Pelops? Was it not you? Who that Mars was
Spartanus? was it not your writer Epicharmus? Who that he was born
within the confines of Thrace? was it not Sophocles the Athenian, with
the assent of all his spectators? Who that he was born in Arcadia? was
it not you? Who that he was kept a prisoner for thirteen months?
[4140] was it not the son of the river Meles? Who said that dogs were
sacrificed to him by the Carians, asses by the Scythians? was it not
Apollodorus especially, along with the rest? Who that in wronging
another's marriage couch, he was caught entangled in snares? was it
not your writings, your tragedies? Did we ever write that the gods for
hire endured slavery, as Hercules at Sardis [4141] for lust and
wantonness; as the Delian Apollo, who served Admetus, as Jove's
brother, who served the Trojan Laomedon, whom the Pythian also served,
but with his uncle; as Minerva, who gives light, and trims the lamps
to secret lovers? Is not he one of your poets, who re resented Mars
and Venus as wounded by men's hands? Is not Panyassis one of you, who
relates that father Dis and queenly Juno were wounded by Hercules? Do
not the writings of your Polemo say that Pallas [4142] was
slain, [4143] covered with her own blood, overwhelmed by Ornytus?
Does not Sosibius declare that Hercules himself was afflicted by the
wound and pain he suffered at the hands of Hipocoon's children? Is it
related at our instance that Jupiter was committed to the grave in the
island of Crete? Do we say that the brothers, [4144] who were
united in their cradle, were buried in the territories of Sparta and
Lacedaemon? Is the author of our number, who is termed Patrocles the
Thurian in the titles of his writings, who relates that the tomb and
remains of Saturn are found [4145] in Sicily? Is Plutarch of
Chaeronea [4146] esteemed one of us, who said that Hercules was
reduced to ashes on the top of Mount Oeta, after his loss of strength
through epilepsy?

26. But what shall I say of the desires with which it is written in
your books, and contained in your writers, that the holy immortals
lusted after women? For is it by us that the king of the sea is
asserted in the heat of maddened passion to have robbed of their
virgin purity Amphitrite, [4147] Hippothoe, Amymone, Menalippe,
Alope? [4148] that the spotless Apollo, Latona's son, most chaste
and pure, with the passions of a breast not governed by reason,
desired Arsinoe, Aethusa, Hypsipyle, Marpessa, Zeuxippe, and Prothoe,
Daphne, and Sterope? [4149] Is it shown in our poems that the aged
Saturn, already long covered with grey hair, and now cooled by weight
of years, being taken by his wife in adultery, put on the form of one
of the lower animals, and neighing loudly, escaped in the shape of a
beast? Do you not accuse Jupiter himself of having assumed countless
forms, and concealed by mean deceptions the ardour of his wanton lust?
Have we ever written that he obtained his desires by deceit, at one
time changing into gold, at another into a sportive satyr; into a
serpent, a bird, a bull; and, to pass beyond all limits of disgrace,
into a little ant, that he might, forsooth, make Clitor's daughter the
mother of Myrmidon, in Thessaly? Who represented him as having watched
over Alcmena for nine nights without ceasing? was it not you?--that he
indolently abandoned himself to his lusts, forsaking his post in
heaven? was it not you? And, indeed, you ascribe [4150] to him no
mean favours; since, in your opinion, the god Hercules was born to
exceed and surpass in such matters his father's powers. He in nine
nights begot [4151] with difficulty one son; but Hercules, a holy
god, in one night taught the fifty daughters of Thestius at once to
lay aside their virginal title, and to bear a mother's burden.
Moreover, not content to have ascribed to the gods love of women, do
you also say that they lusted after men? Some one loves Hylas; another
is engaged with Hyacinthus; that one burns with desire for Pelops;
this one sighs more ardently for Chrysippus; Catamitus is carried off
to be a favourite and cup-bearer; and Fabius, that he may be called
Jove's darling, is branded on the soft parts, and marked in the
hinder.

27. But among you, is it only the males who lust; and has the female
sex preserved its purity? [4152] Is it not proved in your books
that Tithonus was loved by Aurora; that Luna lusted after Endymion;
the Nereid after Aeacus; Thetis after Achilles' father; Proserpina
after Adonis; her mother, Ceres, after some rustic Jasion, and
afterwards Vulcan, Phaeton, [4153] Mars; Venus herself, the mother
of Aeneas, and founder of the Roman power, to marry Anchises? While,
therefore, you accuse, without making any exception, not one only by
name, but the whole of the gods alike, in whose existence you believe,
of such acts of extraordinary shamefulness and baseness, do you dare,
without violation of modesty, to say either that we are impious, or
that you are pious, although they receive from you much greater
occasion for offence on account of all the shameful acts which you
heap up to their reproach, than in connection with the service and
duties required by their majesty, honour, and worship? For either all
these things are false which you bring forward about them
individually, lessening their credit and reputation; and it is in that
case a matter quite deserving, that the gods should utterly destroy
the race of men; or if they are true and certain, and perceived
without any reasons for doubt, it comes to this issue, that, however
unwilling you may be, we believe them to be not of heavenly, but of
earthly birth.

28. For where there are weddings, marriages, births, nurses, arts,
[4154] and weaknesses; where there are liberty and slavery; where
there are wounds, slaughter, and shedding of blood; where there are
lusts, desires, sensual pleasures; where there is every mental passion
arising from disgusting emotions,--there must of necessity be nothing
godlike there; nor can that cleave to a superior nature which belongs
to a fleeting race, and to the frailty of earth. For who, if only he
recognises and perceives what the nature of that power is, can believe
either that a deity had the generative members, and was deprived of
them by a very base operation; or that he at one time cut off the
children sprung from himself, and was punished by suffering
imprisonment; or that he, in a way, made civil war upon his father,
and deprived him of the right of governing; or that he, filled with
fear of one younger when overcome, turned to flight, and hid in remote
solitudes, like a fugitive and exile? Who, I say, can believe that the
deity reclined at men's tables, was troubled on account of his
avarice, deceived his suppliants by an ambiguous reply, excelled in
the tricks of thieves, committed adultery, acted as a slave, was
wounded, and in love, and submitted to the seduction of impure desires
in all the forms of lust? But yet you declare all these things both
were, and are, in your gods; and you pass by no form of vice,
wickedness, error, without bringing it forward, in the wantonness of
your fancies, to the reproach of the gods. You must, therefore, either
seek out other gods, to whom all these reproaches shall not apply, for
they are a human and earthly race to whom they apply; or if there are
only these whose names and character you have declared, by your
beliefs you do away with them: for all the things of which you speak
relate to men.

29. And here, indeed, we can show that all those whom you represent to
us as and call gods, were but men, by quoting either Euhemerus of
Acragas, [4155] whose books were translated by Ennius into Latin
that all might be thoroughly acquainted with them; or Nicanor
[4156] the Cyprian; or the Pellaean Leon; or Theodorus of Cyrene; or
Hippo and Diagoras of Melos; or a thousand other writers, who have
minutely, industriously, and carefully [4157] brought secret things
to light with noble candour. We may, I repeat, at pleasure, declare
both the acts of Jupiter, and the wars of Minerva and the virgin
[4158] Diana; by what stratagems Liber strove to make himself master
of the Indian empire; what was the condition, the duty, the gain
[4159] of Venus; to whom the great mother was bound in marriage; what
hope, what joy was aroused in her by the comely Attis; whence came the
Egyptian Serapis and Isis, or for what reasons their very names
[4160] were formed.

30. But in the discussion which we at present maintain, we do not
undertake this trouble or service, to show and declare who all these
were. But this is what we proposed to ourselves, that as you call us
impious and irreligious, and, on the other hand, maintain that you are
pious and serve the gods, we should prove and make manifest that by no
men are they treated with less respect than by you. But if it is
proved by the very insults that it is so, it must, as a consequence,
be understood that it is yon who rouse the gods to fierce and terrible
rage, because you either listen to or believe, or yourselves invent
about them, stories so degrading. For it is not he who is anxiously
thinking of religious rites, [4161] and slays spotless victims, who
gives piles of incense to be burned with fire, not he must be thought
to worship the deities, or alone discharge the duties of religion.
True worship is in the heart, and a belief worthy of the gods; nor
does it at all avail to bring blood and gore, if you believe about
them things which are not only far remote from and unlike their
nature, but even to some extent stain and disgrace both their dignity
and virtue.

31. We wish, then, to question you, and invite you to answer a short
question, Whether you think it a greater offence to sacrifice to them
being neither wishes nor desires these; or, with foul beliefs, to hold
opinions about them so degrading, that they might rouse any one's
spirit to a mad desire for revenge? If the relative importance of the
matters be weighed, you will find no judge so prejudiced as not to
believe it a greater crime to defame by manifest insults any one's
reputation, than to treat it with silent neglect. For this, perhaps,
may be held and believed from deference to reason; but the other
course manifests an impious spirit, and a blindness despaired of in
fiction. If in your ceremonies and rites neglected sacrifices and
expiatory offerings may be demanded, guilt is said to have been
contracted; if by a momentary forgetfulness [4162] any one has
erred either in speaking or in pouring wine; [4163] or again,
[4164] if at the solemn games and sacred races the dancer has halted,
or the musician suddenly become silent,--you all cry out immediately
that something has been done contrary to the sacredness of the
ceremonies; or if the boy termed patrimus let go the thong in
ignorance, [4165] or could not hold to the earth: [4166] and yet
do you dare to deny that the gods are ever being wronged by you in
sins so grievous, while you confess yourselves that, in less matters,
they are often angry, to the national ruin?

32. But all these things, they say, are the fictions of poets, and
games arranged for pleasure. It is not credible, indeed, that men by
no means thoughtless, who sought to trace out the character of the
remotest antiquity, either did not [4167] insert in their poems the
fables which survived in men's minds [4168] and common
conversation; [4169] or that they would have assumed to themselves
so great licence as to foolishly feign what was almost sheer madness,
and might give them reason to be afraid of the gods, and bring them
into danger with men. But let us grant that the poets are, as yon say,
the inventors and authors of tales so disgraceful; you are not,
however, even thus free from the guilt of dishonouring the gods, who
either are remiss in punishing such offences, or have not, by passing
laws, and by severity of punishments, opposed such indiscretion, and
determined [4170] that no man should henceforth say that which
tended to the dishonour, [4171] or was unworthy of the glory of the
gods. [4172] For whoever allows the wrongdoer to sin, strengthens
his audacity; and it is more insulting to brand and mark any one with
false accusations, than to bring forward and upbraid their real
offences. For to be called what you are, and what you feel yourself to
be, is less offensive, because your resentment is checked by the
evidence supplied against you on privately reviewing your life;
[4173] but that wounds very keenly which brands the innocent, and
defames a man's honourable name and reputation.

33. Your gods, it is recorded, dine on celestial couches, and in
golden chambers, drink, and are at last soothed by the music of the
lyre, and singing. You fit them with ears not easily wearied;
[4174] and do not think it unseemly to assign to the gods the
pleasures by which earthly bodies are supported, and which are sought
after by ears enervated by the frivolity of an unmanly spirit. Some of
them are brought forward in the character of lovers, destroyers of
purity, to commit shameful and degrading deeds not only with women,
but with men also. You take no care as to what is said about matters
of so much importance, nor do you check, by any fear of chastisement
at least, the recklessness of your wanton literature; others, through
madness and frenzy, bereave themselves, and by the slaughter of their
own relatives cover themselves with blood, just as though it were that
of an enemy. You wonder at these loftily expressed impieties; and that
which it was fitting should be subjected to all punishments, you extol
with praise that spurs them on, so as to rouse their recklessness to
greater vehemence. They mourn over the wounds of their bereavement,
and with unseemly wailings accuse the cruel fates; you are astonished
at the force of their eloquence, carefully study and commit to memory
that which should have been wholly put away from human society,
[4175] and are solicitous that it should not perish through any
forgetfulness. They are spoken of as being wounded, maltreated, making
war upon each other with hot and furious contests; you enjoy the
description; and, to enable you to defend so great daring in the
writers, pretend that these things are allegories, and contain the
principles of natural science.

34. But why do I complain that you have disregarded the insults
[4176] offered to the other deities? That very Jupiter, whose name you
should not have spoken without fear and trembling over your whole
body, is described as confessing his faults when overcome by lust
[4177] of his wife, and, hardened in shamelessness, making known, as
if he were mad and ignorant, [4178] the mistresses he preferred to
his spouse, the concubines he preferred to his wife; you say that
those who have uttered so marvellous things are chiefs and kings among
poets endowed with godlike genius, that they are persons most holy;
and so utterly have you lost sight of your duty in the matters of
religion which you bring forward, that words are of more importance,
in your opinion, than the profaned majesty of the immortals. So then,
if only you felt any fear of the gods, or believed with confident and
unhesitating assurance that they existed at all, should you not, by
bills, by popular votes, by fear of the senate's decrees, have
hindered, prevented, and forbidden any one to speak at random of the
gods otherwise than in a pious manner? [4179] Nor have they
obtained this honour even at your hands, that you should repel insults
offered to them by the same laws by which you ward them off from
yourselves. They are accused of treason among you who have whispered
any evil about your kings. To degrade a magistrate, or use insulting
language to a senator, you have made by decree a crime, followed by
the severest punishment. To write a satirical poem, by which a slur is
cast upon the reputation and character of another, you determined, by
the decrees of the decemvirs, should not go unpunished; and that no
one might assail your ears with too wanton abuse, you established
formulae [4180] for severe affronts. With you only the gods are
unhonoured, contemptible, vile; against whom you allow any one liberty
to say what he will, to accuse them of the deeds of baseness which his
lust has invented and devised. And yet you do not blush to raise
against us the charge of want of regard for deities so infamous,
although it is much better to disbelieve the existence of the gods
than to think they are such, and of such repute.

35. But is it only poets whom you have thought proper [4181] to
allow to invent unseemly tales about the gods, and to turn them
shamefully into sport? What do your pantomimists, the actors, that
crowd of mimics and adulterers? [4182] Do they [4183] not abuse
your gods to make to themselves gain, and do not the others [4184]
find enticing pleasures in [4185] the wrongs and insults offered to
the gods? At the public games, too, the colleges of all the priests
and magistrates take their places, the chief Pontiffs, and the chief
priests of the curiae; the Quindecemviri take their places, crowned
with wreaths of laurel, and the flamines diales with their mitres; the
augurs take their places, who disclose the divine mind and will; and
the chaste maidens also, who cherish and guard the ever-burning fire;
the whole people and the senate take their places; the fathers who
have done service as consuls, princes next to the gods, and most
worthy of reverence; and, shameful to say, Venus, the mother of the
race of Mars, and parent of the imperial people, is represented by
gestures as in love, [4186] and is delineated with shameless
mimicry as raving like a Bacchanal, with all the passions of a vile
harlot. [4187] The Great Mother, too, adorned with her sacred
fillets, is represented by dancing; and that Pessinuntic Dindymene
[4188] is, to the dishonour of her age, represented as with shameful
desire using passionate gestures in the embrace of a herdsman; and
also in the Trachiniae of Sophocles, [4189] that son of Jupiter,
Hercules, entangled in the toils of a death-fraught garment, is
exhibited uttering piteous cries, overcome by his violent suffering,
and at last wasting away and being consumed, as his intestines soften
and are dissolved. [4190] But in these tales even the Supreme Ruler
of the heavens Himself is brought forward, without any reverence for
His name and majesty, as acting the part of an adulterer, and changing
His countenance for purposes of seduction, in order that He might by
guile rob of their chastity matrons, who were the wives of others, and
putting on the appearance of their husbands, by assuming the form of
another.

36. But this crime is not enough: the persons of the most sacred gods
are mixed up with farces also, and scurrilous plays. And that the idle
onlookers may be excited to laughter and jollity, the deities are hit
at in jocular quips, the spectators shout and rise up, the whole pit
resounds with the clapping of hands and applause. And to the debauched
scoffers [4191] at the gods gifts and presents are ordained, ease,
freedom from public burdens, exemption and relief, together with
triumphal garlands,--a crime for which no amends can be made by any
apologies. And after this do you dare to wonder whence these ills come
with which the human race is deluged and overwhelmed without any
interval, while you daily both repeat and learn by heart all these
things, with which are mixed up libels upon the gods and slanderous
sayings; and when [4192] you wish your inactive minds to be
occupied with useless dreamings, demand that days be given to you, and
exhibition made without any interval? But if you felt any real
indignation on behalf of your religious beliefs, you should rather
long ago have burned these writings, destroyed those books of yours,
and overthrown these theatres, in which evil reports of your deities
are daily made public in shameful tales. For why, indeed, have our
writings deserved to be given to the flames? our meetings to be
cruelly broken up, [4193] in which prayer is made to the Supreme
God, peace and pardon are asked for all in authority, for soldiers,
kings, friends, enemies, for those still in life, and those freed from
the bondage of the flesh; [4194] in which all that is said is such
as to make men humane, [4195] gentle, modest, virtuous, chaste,
generous in dealing with their substance, and inseparably united to
all embraced in our brotherhood? [4196]

37. But this is the state of the case, that as you are exceedingly
strong in war and in military power, you think you excel in knowledge
of the truth also, and are pious before the gods, [4197] whose
might you have been the first to besmirch with foul imaginings. Here,
if your fierceness allows. and madness suffers, we ask you to answer
us this: Whether you think that anger finds a place in the divine
nature, or that the divine blessedness is far removed from such
passions? For if they are subject to passions so furious, [4198]
and are excited by feelings of rage as your imaginings suggest.--for
you say that they have often shaken the earth with their roaring,
[4199] and bringing woful misery on men, corrupted with pestilential
contagion the character of the times, [4200] both because their
games had been celebrated with too little care, and because their
priests were not received with favour, and because some small spaces
were desecrated, and because their rites were not duly performed,--it
must consequently be understood that they feel no little wrath on
account of the opinions which have been mentioned. But if, as follows
of necessity, it is admitted that all these miseries with which men
have long been overwhelmed flow from such fictions, if the anger of
the deities is excited by these causes, you are the occasion of so
terrible misfortunes, because you never cease to jar upon the feelings
of the gods, and excite them to a fierce desire for vengeance. But if,
on the other hand, the gods are not subject to such passions, and do
not know at all what it is to be enraged, then indeed there is no
ground for saying that they who know not what anger is are angry with
us, * and they are free from its presence, [4201] and the
disorder [4202] it causes. For it cannot be, in the nature of
things, that what is one should become two; and that unity, which is
naturally uncompounded, should divide and go apart into separate
things. [4203]

Footnotes

[4005] Lit., "see altars built."
[4006] Lit., "in the regions of heaven."
[4007] The ms. reads tam (corrected by the first four edd. tamen) in
regionibus--"in the divine seats;" corrected, religionibus, as above,
by Ursinus.
[4008] Lit., "to the deluding of your deities."
[4009] Lit., "is contained in a form of its own kind."
[4010] i.e., manliness.
[4011] Lit., "which it is easy to perceive to be said by us with the
greatest truth from,"etc.,--so most edd. reading nobis; but the ms.,
according to Crusius, gives vobis--"you," as in Orelli and Oberthür.
[4012] Lit., "less auspicious."
[4013] The ms., first four edd., and Elmenhorst, read, quae--"which;"
the rest, as above, que.
[4014] 0 Lit., "what is opposed to them named." nominatum; a
correction by Oehler for the ms. nominatur-- "is named."
[4015] The ms. and both Roman edd. read signatorum--"sealed;" the
others, except Hild., ignotorum, as above.
[4016] Lit., "drew the meaning of her name."
[4017] Lit., "excelled the might of all."
[4018] ms., "that these, too," i.e., as well as Luperca.
[4019] No such discussion occurs in the preceding part of the work,
but the subject is brought forward in the end of chap. 8, p. 478,
infra.
[4020] In the first sentence the ms. reads utrique, and in the
second utique, which is reversed in most edd., as above.
[4021] Lit., "ever at hand with gracious assistances."
[4022] Lit., "are not of."
[4023] 6 i.e., the field of Cannae.
[4024] 0 [1 Kings xviii. 27.]
[4025] Lit., "the parts."
[4026] Lit., "it cannot be brought into any light of general
understanding by you."
[4027] Lit., "convexity."
[4028] Lit., "be of."
[4029] Lit., "to the state of the world."
[4030] Lit., "who have been so formed, that some things are said by
us," nobis, the reading of Oberthür and Orelli for the ms. in nos--
"with regard to us," which is retained by the first four edd., Elm.,
Hild. and Oehler.
[4031] i.e., transit in vocabulum sinistri; in being omitted in the
ms. and both Roman edd.
[4032] Lit., "the turning round of the body being changed."
[4033] So Oehler, reading positione, sed tempore sed, for the ms.
positionis et temporis et.
[4034] 0 No mention is made of this deity by any other author.
[4035] Lit., "that he may do what."
[4036] Lit., "good condition," habitudinem.
[4037] Lit., "a disreputable act."
[4038] So the ms. reading flagitiis, followed by all edd. except
LB. and Orelli, who read plagiis--"kidnapping."
[4039] Of this goddess, also, no other author makes mention but the
germ may be perhaps found in Lucretius (ii. 1116-7), where nature is
termed perfica, i.e., "perfecting," or making all things complete.
[The learned translator forgets Tertullian, who introduces us to this
name in the work Arnobius imitates throughout. See vol. iii. p. 140.]
[4040] i.e., in cubiculis praesto est virginalem scrobem
effodientibus maritis.
[4041] The first five edd. read Mutunus. Cf. ch. 11. [I think it a
mistake to make Mutubus = Priapus. Their horrible deformities are
diverse, as I have noted in European collections of antiquities. The
specialty of Mutunus is noted by our author, and is unspeakably
abominable. All this illustrates, therefore, the Christian scruples
about marriage-feasts, of which see vol. v. note 1, p. 435.]
[4042] Lit., the "fancies" or "imaginations" of false gods.
Meursius proposed to transpose the whole of this sentence to the end
of the chapter, which would give a more strictly logical arrangement;
but it must be remembered that Arnobius allows himself much liberty in
this respect.
[4043] Of these three deities no other mention is made.
[4044] 0 The ms., LB., Hild., and Oehler read qui--"who brings;" the
other edd., as above, quia.
[4045] So the ms. (cf. ch. 11), first five edd., Oberth., Hild.,
and Oehler; the other edd., read Nodutim Ter.
[4046] So the ms., both Roman edd., and Oehler; the other edd.
reading Vibilia, except Hild., Viabilia.
[4047] The ms. reads nam--"for," followed by all edd. except
Orelli, who reads jam as above, and Oehler, who reads etiam--"also."
[4048] Orelli omits non, following Oberthür.
[4049] Both in this and the preceding chapter the ms. reads
Melonia.
[4050] Lit., "obtained by lot the wardships."
[4051] Lit., "signs."
[4052] So the ms. both Roman edd., Hild., and Oehler; the others
reading Liburnum, except Elm, who reads -am, while Meursius
conjectured Liberum--"Bacchus."
[4053] Lit., "shameful impurity seeks after;" expetit read by
Gelenius, Canterus, and Oberthür, for the unintelligible ms. reading
expeditur, retained in both Roman edd.; the others reading experitur--
"tries."
[4054] 0 The ms. reads Lemons; Hild. and Oehler, Limones; the others,
Limos, as above.
[4055] The ms. LB., Hild., and Oehler read Murcidam; the others,
Murciam, as above.
[4056] i.e., equestrian rank.
[4057] The ms. reading is quid si haberet in sedibus suos, retained
by the first five edd., with the change of -ret into -rent--"what if
in their seats the bones had their own peculiar guardians;" Ursinus in
the margin, followed by Hild. and Oehler, reads in se divos suos--"if
for themselves the bones had gods as their own peculiar," etc.; the
other edd. reading, as above, si habere insistitis suos.
[4058] i.e., deities. So LB. and Orelli, reading quid
potestatum?--"what, O fathers of powers." The ms. gives qui--"what say
you, O fathers of new religions, who cry out, and complain that gods
of powers are indecently dishonoured by us, and neglected with impious
contempt," etc. Heraldus emends thus: "...fathers of great religions
and powers? Do you, then, cry out," etc. "Fathers," i.e., those who
discovered, and introduced, unknown deities and forms of worship.
[4059] The ms. reads pertus quae- (marked as spurious) dam; and,
according to Hild., naeniam is written over the latter word.
[4060] So the ms. Cf. ch. 7 [note 10, p. 478, supra].
[4061] The ms. is here very corrupt and imperfect,--supplices hoc
est uno procumbimus atque est utuno (Orelli omits ut-), emended by
Gelenius, with most edd., supp. Mut-uno proc. atque Tutuno, as above;
Elm. and LB. merely insert humi--"on the ground," after supp. [See p.
478, note 6, supra]
[4062] Meursius is of opinion that some words have slipped out of
the text here, and that some arguments had been introduced about
augury and divination.
[4063] Contendis, not found in the ms.
[4064] 0 i.e., the predictions.
[4065] Lit., "will you make the same belief."
[4066] Lit., "adapt themselves to the significations of the things
which."
[4067] Lit., "brothers of."
[4068] i.e., demons.
[4069] Perhaps "abilities"--materiis.
[4070] The ms. reads cum-- "with similar reason we may believe,"
instead of cur, as above.
[4071] Lit., "novelty of the thing."
[4072] Lit., "of places and divisions," i.e., places separated from
each other.
[4073] Lit., "affords to you the appearance of."
[4074] 0 Lit., "a severity of stern manner"--moris for the ms. mares.
[4075] Orelli here introduces the sentence, "For it cannot be,"
etc., with which this book is concluded in the ms. Cf. ch. 37, n. 4,
infra.
[4076] There can be no doubt that Arnobius here refers to Clemens
Alexandrinus (Lo'gos Protreptiko`s pro`s Ellenas), and Cicero (de
Nat. Deor.), from whom he borrows most freely in the following
chapters, quoting them at times very closely. We shall not indicate
particular references without some special reason, as it must be
understood these references would be required with every statement.
[Compare Clement, vol. ii. pp. 305-13, and Tertullian, vol. iii. p.
34.]
[4077] Lit., "given to us an abridging," i.e., an opportunity of
abridging.
[4078] Lit., "committed to sepulture and born in," etc.
[4079] Arnobius repeats this statement in ch. 22, or the name would
have been regarded as corrupt, no other author making mention of such
a goddess; while Cicero speaks of one Sun as born of Hyperion. It
would appear, therefore, to be very probable that Arnobius, in writing
from memory or otherwise, has been here in some confusion as to what
Cicero did say, and thus wrote the name as we have it. It has also
been proposed to read "born of Regina" (or, with Gelenius, Rhea), "and
his father Hyperion," because Cybele is termed basi'leia; for which
reading there seems no good reason.--Immediately below, Ialysus is
made the son, instead of, as in Cicero, the grandson of the fourth;
and again, Circe is said to be mother, while Cicero speaks of her as
the daughter of the fifth Sun. These variations, viewed along with the
general adherence to Cicero's statements (de N. D., iii. 21 sqq. ),
seem to give good grounds for adopting the explanation given above.
[4080] i.e.,
[4081] Lit., "of Jupiter, but the third."
[4082] i.e., incestorum appetitorem.
[4083] So Cicero (iii. 23); but Clemens [vol. ii. p. 179] speaks of
five, and notes that a sixth had been mentioned.
[4084] 0 Lit., "by the violence of your terror." The preceding words
are read in the ms. ideo motos--"so moved by authority," and were
emended idonea, as in the text, by Gelenius.
[4085] Lit., "to what parts shall we transfer the duties of pious
service."
[4086] The ms. reads cum numen; Rigaltius, followed by Oehler
emending, as above, meum; the first four edd., with Oberthür,
tum--"then the deity is mine;" while the rest read cum numine--"with
the deity."
[4087] So LB., Orelli, and Oehler, reading tu tinnis for the ms.
tutunis.
[4088] Capitoliis. In the Capitol were three shrines,--to Jove,
Juno, and Minerva; and Roman colonies followed the mother-state's
example. Hence the present general application of the term, which is
found elsewhere in ecclesiastical Latin.
[4089] Lit., "Nor are the forms of married persons given to these
by all artists;" nec read in all edd. for the ms. et--"and of
married," etc., which is opposed to the context.
[4090] Lit., "not of your own right."
[4091] Concretione roris--a strange phrase. Cf. Her., iv. 180:
"They say that Minerva is the daughter of Poseidon and the Tritonian
lake."
[4092] St. p. 21. The ms. reads quorum Nili lingua latonis; the two
Roman edd. merely insert p., Plat.; Gelenius and Canterus adding
dicor--"in whose language I am called the Nile's," Nili being changed
into Neith by Elmenhorst and later edd.
[4093] Lit., "take account of herself."
[4094] 0 So Ursinus suggested in the margin for the ms. si verum.
[4095] The third Minerva now addresses the fourth.
[4096] Lit., "approaching the duties of religion."
[4097] According to the ms. sic--"for so (i.e., as you do)
yielding,"etc.
[4098] So all the edd., though Orelli approves of fictione
(edd.-em), which is, he says, the ms. reading, "set forth with wanton
fiction."
[4099] The ms. and earlier edd., with Hild. and Oehler, read ex
hominum de scriptis; LB. and Orelli inserting his after de, as above.
[4100] The ms. and both Roman edd. read esse, which is clearly
corrupt; for which LB. gives scripsisse (misprinted scripse), as
above.
[4101] i.e., "speak of them at all."
[4102] Lit., "an idea of no writing."
[4103] Lit., "been informed by books suggesting to you," etc.
[4104] 00 Lit., "does it not touch the feeling of your mind."
[4105] 01 Ursinus would supply eos--"that they are so."
[4106] 02 Atque ex seminis, actu, or jactu, as the edd. except Hild.
read it.
[4107] 03 The ms. reads dignitati-s aut; corrected, as above, d.
sane, in the first five edd., Oberthür, and Orelli. [John x. 35.]
[4108] 04 Quaesit foeditas ista coeundi.
[4109] 05 Lit., "as far as to themselves, their first generation
being completed."
[4110] 06 Lit., "forgetting the so great majesty and sublimity."
[4111] 07 Both plural.
[4112] 08 Both plural.
[4113] 09 The ms., first four edd., and Oberthür read
conducunt--"unite;" for which the rest read condic-unt, as above.
[4114] 0 i.e., usu, farre, coemptione.
[4115] The word here translated mistresses, speratas, is used of
maidens loved, but not yet asked in marriage.
[4116] Lit., "dangers of destructions."
[4117] Instead of "occasioned," sevisse, which the later editions
give, the ms. and first four edd. read saevisse--"that danger and
destruction raged against," etc.
[4118] Copulatis corporibus.
[4119] i.e. not his mother's, but the dug of the goat Amalthea.
[4120] Lit., "rattles heard."
[4121] Lit., "the eminence of the powers."
[4122] Lit., "inundation."
[4123] Lit., "Saturnian gravity."
[4124] 0 Cf. ch. 14, note 8, supra.
[4125] It is worth while to compare this passage with ch. 16. Here
Arnobius makes I.atona the mother of Apollo and Diana in accordance
with the common legend; but there he represents the first Minerva as
claming them as her children.
[4126] In the ms. there is here an evident blunder on the part of
the copyist, who has inserted the preceding line ("the archer Apollo,
and of the woods") after "the same." Omitting these words, the ms.
reading is literally, "the name in Greek is to the Dioscori." Before
"the name" some word is pretty generally supposed to have been lost,
some conjecturing "to whom;" others (among them Orelli, following
Salmasius) "Castores." But it is evidently not really necessary to
supplement the text.
[4127] Lit., "scatter."
[4128] Orelli reads with the ms., LB., and Hild., babecali, which
he interprets belli, i.e., "handsome."
[4129] ms. and first five edd. read inde--"thence;" the others in
se, as above. [Elucidation III.]
[4130] Orelli, without receiving into the text, approves of the
reading of Stewechius, promptam, "evident," for the ms. propriam.
[4131] Lit., "the benefits diminished by which it is lived."
[4132] The ms. reads ex Jovis; the first five edd. Jove--"from
Jove," which is altogether out of place; the others, as above, ex
ovis. Cf. i. 36.
[4133] The ms. reads et ablui diebus tantis...elevari; LB., Hild.
and Oehler, statis or statutis...et levari--"and was loosed and
released on fixed days:" Elm., Oberthür, and Orelli receive the
conjecture of Ursinus, et suis diebus tantum...rel., as above.
[4134] 0 Cf. iii. [cap. 41, p. 475, and cap. 30, p. 472].
[4135] i.e., hiding-place. Virg., Aen., viii. 322: Quoniam
latuisset tutus in oris.
[4136] Pyth., iii. 102 sq.
[4137] ms. Meglac.
[4138] The ms. and most edd. give filias, making the Muses
daughters of Macarus; but Orelli, Hild., and Oehler adopt, as above,
the reading of Canterus, filiae, in accordance with Clem. Alex.
[4139] So the ms. reading numquid dictatum, which would refer this
sentence to the end of the last chapter. Gelenius, with Canth.,
Oberth., and Orelli, reads quis ditatam, and joins with the following
sentence thus: "Who related that Venus, a courtezan enriched by C.,
was deified...? who that the palladium," etc. Cf. v. 19.
[4140] The ms. reads quis mensibus in Arcadia tribus et decem
vinctum--"Who that he was bound thirteen months in Arcadia? was it not
the son," etc. To which there are these two objections--that Homer
never says so; and that Clemens Alexandrinus [vol. ii. p, 179, this
series], from whom Arnobius here seems to draw, speaks of Homer as
saying only that Mars was so bound, without referring to Arcadia. The
ms. reading may have arisen from carelessness on the part of Arnobius
in quoting (cf. ch. 14, n. 2), or may be a corruption of the copyists.
The reading translated is an emendation by Jortin, adopted by Orelli.
[4141] Sardibus,--a conjecture of Ursinus, adopted by LB., Hild.,
and Oehler for the ms. sordibus; for which the others read sordidi--
"for the sake of base lust."
[4142] Lit., "the masculine one."
[4143] As this seems rather extravagant when said of one of the
immortals, laesam, "hurt," has been proposed by Meursius.
[4144] 0 Castor and Pollux.
[4145] Lit., "contained."
[4146] The ms. reads Hieronymus Pl--"is Hier., is Pl.," while
Clem. Alex. mentions only "Hieronymus the philosopher."
[4147] These names are all in the plural in the original.
[4148] So LB. and Orelli, reading Alopas, from Clem. Alex., for
the ms. Alcyonas.
[4149] These names are all in the plural in the original.
[4150] Lit., "you add."
[4151] In the original, somewhat at large--unam potuit prolem
extundere, concinnare, compingere.
[4152] All edd. read this without mark of interrogation.
[4153] The ms. reads Phaetontem: for which, both here and in
Clem., Potter proposed Phaonem, because no such amour is mentioned
elsewhere.
[4154] 0 i.e., either the arts which belong to each god (cf. the
words in ii. 18: "these (arts) are not the gifts of science, but the
discoveries of necessity"), or, referring to the words immediately
preceding, obstetric arts.
[4155] Lit., "Euhemerus being opened."
[4156] So Elm. and Orelli, reading Nicanore for the ms. Nicagora,
retained by all other edd.
[4157] Lit., "with the care of scrupulous diligence."
[4158] Meursius would join virginis to Minerva, thinking it an
allusion to her title Parthe'nos.
[4159] These terms are employed of hetaerae.
[4160] Lit., "the title itself of their names was."
[4161] Qui sollicite relegit. Relegit is here used by Arnobius to
denote the root of religio, and has therefore some such meaning as
that given above. Cf. Cicero, de Nat. Deorum, ii. 28.
[4162] Lit., "an error of inadvertence."
[4163] Lit., "with the sacrificial bowl."
[4164] 0 So the ms., both Roman edd., Elm., Hild., and Oehler,
reading rursus; the others in cursu--"in the course."
[4165] Patrimus, i.e., one whose father is alive, is probably used
loosely for patrimus et matrimus, to denote one both of whose parents
were alive, who was therefore eligible for certain religious services.
[4166] So the ms. reading terram tenere, for which Hild. would
read tensam, denoting the car on which were borne the images of the
gods, the thongs or reins of which were held by the patrimus et
matrimus; Lipsius, siserram, the sacrificial victim. The reading of
the text has been explained as meaning to touch the ground with one's
hands; but the general meaning is clear enough,--that it was unlucky
if the boy made a slip, either with hands or feet.
[4167] Oberthür and Orelli omit non.
[4168] Lit., "notions."
[4169] Lit., "placed in their ears."
[4170] Lit., "and it has not been established by you,"--a very
abrupt transition in the structure of the sentence.
[4171] Lit., "which was very near to disgrace."
[4172] So the margin of Ursinus, followed by later edd., prefixing
d before the ms. -eorum.
[4173] Lit., "has less bite, being weakened by the testimony of
silent reviewing," recognitionis.
[4174] 0 Lit., "most enduring."
[4175] Coetu. The ms. and most edd. read coalitu,--a word not
occurring elsewhere; which Gesner would explain, "put away that it may
not be established among men," the sense being the same in either
case.
[4176] Lit., "complain of the neglected insults of the other
gods."
[4177] Lit., "as a lover by." Cf. Homer, Il., 14, 312.
[4178] i.e., of himself.
[4179] Lit., "except that which was full of religion."
[4180] i.e., according to which such offenses should be punished.
[4181] Lit., "have willed."
[4182] Lit., "full-grown race," exoleti, a word frequently used,
as here, sensu obscaeno.
[4183] i.e., the actors, etc.
[4184] 0 i.e., the crowd of adulterers, as Orelli suggests.
[4185] Lit., "draw enticements of pleasures from."
[4186] Or, "Venus, the mother...and loving parent," etc.
[4187] Lit., "of meretricious vileness."
[4188] i.e., Cybele, to whom Mount Dindymus in Mysia was sacred,
whose rites, however, were celebrated at Pessinus also, a very ancient
city of Galatia.
[4189] ms. Sofocles, corrected in LB. Sophocles. Cf. Trach. 1022
sqq.
[4190] Lit., "towards (in) the last of the wasting consumed by the
softening of his bowels flowing apart."
[4191] Lit., "debauched and scoffers."
[4192] So Orelli, reading et quando; ms. and other edd. et
si--"and if ever."
[4193] Arnobius is generally thought to refer here to the
persecution under Diocletian mentioned by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., viii.
2.
[4194] 0 The service in which these prayers were offered was
presided over by the bishop, to whom the dead body was brought: hymns
were then sung of thanksgiving to God, the giver of victory, by whose
help and grace the departed brother had been victorious. The priest
next gave thanks to God, and some chapters of the Scriptures were
read; afterwards the catechumens were dismissed; the names of those at
rest were then read in a clear voice, to remind the survivors of the
success with which others had combated the temptations of the world.
The priest again prayed for the departed, at the close beseeching God
to grant him pardon, and admission among the undying. Thereafter the
body was kissed, anointed, and buried.--Dionysius, Eccl. Hier., last
chapter quoted by Heraldus. Cf. Const. Apost., viii. 41. With the
Church's advance in power there was an accession of pomp to these
rites. [Elucidation IV.]
[4195] Cf. the younger Pliny, Epist., x. 97: "They affirmed that
they bound themselves by oath not for any wicked purpose, but to
pledge themselves not to commit theft, robbery, or adultery, nor break
faith, or prove false to a trust."
[4196] Lit., "whom our society joins together," quos solidet
germanitas. [Lardner justly argues that this passage proves our
author's familiarity with rites to which catechumens were not
admitted. Credibil., vol. iii. p. 458.]
[4197] i.e., in their sight or estimation.
[4198] Lit., "conceive these torches."
[4199] Lit., "have roared with tremblings of the earth."
[4200] The ms. reads conru-isse auras temporum, all except the
first four edd. inserting p as above. Meursius would also change temp.
into ventorum-- "the breezes of the winds."
[4201] So the ms., reading comptu--tie, according to Hild.,
followed by LB. and Orelli.
[4202] Lit., "mixture."
[4203] The words following the asterisk (*) are marked in LB. as
spurious or corrupt, or at least as here out of place. Orelli
transposes them to ch. 13, as was noticed there, although he regards
them as an interpolation. The clause is certainly a very strange one,
and has a kind of affected abstractness, which makes it seem out of
place; but it must be remembered that similarly confused and
perplexing sentences are by no means rare in Arnobius. If the clause
is to be retained, as good sense can be made from it here as anywhere
else. The general meaning would be: The gods, if angry, are angry with
the pagans; but if they are not subject to passion, it would be idle
to speak of them as angry with the Christians, seeing that they cannot
possibly at once be incapable of feeling anger, and yet at the same
time be angry with them. [See cap. 13, note 4, p. 480, supra.]